Devil You Know Recap: Boardwalk Empire

We’re up to Episode 6 of Season 5 of Boardwalk Empire, “Devil You Know – 10/12/2014. That means there are only two episodes left after this.

The episode opens in Narcisse’s brothel with Chalky demanding to know what Daughter is doing in this cathouse, but considering what happened after that we will start off with Nucky’s scenes in Atlantic City:

The State of Oblivion: At the Old Rumpus, Joe Harper has fallen asleep. Mickey wakes him up and when Joe says things are always slow in the middle of the week, Mickey spins a little tale of having his own gang when he was 16. “I was going places”. When Joe asks what happened, Mickey cracks: “Your father set me up with your mother.” A confused Joe is then sent upstairs to Nucky’s suite with sandwiches. Arquimedes finds out that Nucky has flown the coop and runs off to find him while Joe lags behind to inspect Nucky’s room.

Nucky is getting drunk in a seedy dive when cigar-smoking Dinah strikes up a conversation with him. He tells her he is Francis X. Bushman (a silent screen star, Messala in the 1925 film Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ, all washed up by 1931). She has no clue and asks what the X stands for (uh, when it’s with Francis, that’s usually Xavier). She pegs Nucky as a salesman with a cold wife (she hasn’t sucked your d*ck since Harding bought the farm). Soon her friend Irene joins them and they bet that Nucky can’t remember all of Longfellow’s “Song of Hiawatha”. (This is the second time the poem has shown up in the series.) Irene tearfully reminisces about the time she was almost King Neptune’s consort (must have been the year that Gillian actually was). Dinah’s response (King Neptune’s c-sucker) shows that everyone knew what that entailed. A regular patron tells Nucky to shut up when the latter begins to wonder what you try to get ahead for, and insults the women. A fight between him and Nucky ensues. Nucky finishes him off, then finishes Hiawatha off and wins the bet. For his reward, he wants to make whoopee with both of them: Irene first, then Dinah. Instead he gets a knock in the head from Dinah.

Joe Harper finds him laying in the alley reliving the days of old: “”You think I don’t know who you are? — You little scheming monkey, I’ll run you out of town — You stupid child, why would you trust me?” Joe takes him back to the Old Rumpus where Nucky wants to pay him. The boy declines but Nucky insists it will be helping him, as he blames himself for Sally Wheet’s death. Arquimedes comes in and tells him the men are downstairs. Mickey Doyle has assembled a loyal crew, Paul Revere style, only in this one, Luciano and Lanksy are coming.

We came for the ledgers: Van Alden and Eli go to Al Capone’s suite, satchel in tow, whispering about their half-assed plan. Eli tries to makes amends for comparing sex with Sigrid to an accident outside the door. The man who opens the door says come back tomorrow. They insist it must be tonight — the money is already a day late but Al is not there and the key is in his office. Eli opens the door to reveal Ralph Capone boffing a woman. Ralph snatches the satchel away from them, opens it and finds nothing but cut up newspaper inside. He sends for Mike De Angelo.

When De Angelo arrives, he smacks Van Alden hard to “find out” why they are there with phony money. (Not that he doesn’t already know). Eli makes up a tale about robbing the joint and Van Alden says it was his wife’s idea. “We’re having trouble at home,” he confides. “I can vouch for that,” Eli pipes in. Oh, the look on Van Alden’s face! Ralph Capone tells De Angelo to get them out of there and take care of them. They’re going but Al Capone is coming. He returns with movie stars George Raft and Paul Muni, in Chicago to get a feel for their upcoming roles in “Scarface“. Al spots Van Alden and Ralph has to tell him what happened.

Al tells his guests to makes themselves at home and takes Van Alden and Eli into his office. Al’s feelings are hurt that his generosity to both of them has been repaid with treachery. Van Alden and Eli says they did it because they are greedy but Al now thinks Luciano was right and Van Alden “is a badge.” He puts a gun to Van Alden’s head and asks what he has to say. Van Alden straight up flips out, knocks the gun out of his hand, throws Ralph off him and tries to strangle Capone, screaming “I am Nelson Kasper Van Alden. I am a sworn agent of the United States Treasury and I swear by Jesus our Lord, justice will rain down upon you if it is my last…” Boom!

It is his last. De Angelo shoots Van Alden in the head. Al Capone marvels over how long he has been taken in (“All that shit with the irons”) and Eli begins to babble “I’m sorry, June. I’m sorry, June…” Al tells him to spill what he knows and Eli admits they came for the ledgers because they were being squeezed by a Fed, while De Angelo sweats. But Eli names Elliott Ness as the culprit and Al tells De Angelo to take Eli out to the cornfield and kill him. Just before he leaves, Ralph Capone hands De Angelo a satchel with the ledgers to keep them safe. Downstairs Eli reminds De Angelo that Van Alden had two kids but he doesn’t give a shit. So does he. He tosses bus fare out of town at Eli.

Ain’t nobody ever been free: Back at the cathouse, Daughter tells Chalky to leave and says Narcisse is not the father of the sleeping child on the sofa. “Then whose?” Chalky asks. “Just mine,” Daughter replies. Clarence bangs on the locked door and says Narcisse is on his way. Chalky takes the key out of the lock and while they wait for Narcisse, Daughter tries to make him see why she left. He says the only thing that helped him sleep for 7 years was the sound of her voice in his head until he realized he made her up. The child wakens and Chalky questions her. She says she was born in Oklahoma, but they have been all over and her mama doesn’t sing, she works for Mr. Engler. Chalky wants to know what she does for him. Daughter says she keep his toilets clean.

Narcisse knocks at the door. Daughter lets him in when he spies Chalky. He sends Clarence away and shows himself to be unarmed. Narcisse spies the child and asks her name. He tells her that her name Althea means “healing” in ancient Greek. Chalky tells him to leave her and Daughter out of it but asks Daughter why she really came to see Narcisse. Daughter takes a record from her suitcase and says Narcisse has blackballed her. No one will play it or hire her to sing anywhere. Narcisse denies that his influence reaches that far. Chalky insists that he play the record, “Dream a Little Dream of Me.” (First recorded by the Ozzie Nelson Orchestra in 1931). Narcisse suddenly begins to reveal his current problems with Lucky Luciano who is willing to let him do business in his own home if he pays protection against other gangsters. He offers Chalky a chance to work for him against Luciano. Chalky initially scoffs but realizes that Narcisse really wants him to surrender in exchange for Daughter’s freedom and he agrees. Daughter tries to dissuade Chalky by warning him that Narcisse can’t be trusted (which of course he knows). Chalky tells her that she was not put on this earth to clean no ofay’s house.

Chalky asks Althea if she ever met her daddy. “Mama loved him but she had to leave,” the child replies. Chalky cautions her to stay real close to her mama and keep her away from men like him. Daughter and Althea are escorted out by Clarence and Chalky follows Narcisse out to the alley. There he tells the only devil he knows that he’ll never beat “those white boys” and asks if Narcisse will keep his word to free Daughter. Narcisse asks how Chalky will know, and the doomed man admits he won’t. Narcisse replies: “then tell yourself I will.” Chalky says it’s all a dream to begin with: “Ain’t nobody ever been free,” causing Narcisse to pause. He is a bit rattled by these words. Five of his men line up as a firing squad and Chalky submits to his part of this devil’s bargain.

Van Alden’s death went down just the way we like it. He went out fighting, trying to kill the most feared man in Chicago. (You noticed that George Raft and Paul Muni were scared out of their wits, right?) Chalky’s death will take some getting used to. It was always our hope that Chalky would prevail against Narcisse, and his scene with Althea was unbearably sad. We doubt if Narcisse plans to honor his bargain particularly with the way he cozied up to the child, immediately seeing the ideal way to keep Daughter under his thumb. But we will have to take comfort for now in the knowledge that he will still get his. Remember, no one goes quietly. In the case of Chalky, they must have meant the noise of the gunfire.